Project Saksham, India’s largest time-bound comprehensive plan for imparting training to all its employees has been launched by the Indian Railways to boost the efficiency of their employees. This mass skilling exercise is planned to be implemented in the light of bad publicity that the Indian railways has had to face in the last few months on account of inefficiency of its employees, poor quality service delivery, accidents due to derailment of trains etc. The exercise aims at bringing about an image makeover for the Indian Railways by emphasizing on increasing the efficiency and productivity of its employees. The project aims at upgrading the skill set of the 13 lakh strong workforce in the Indian railways. It will be conducted as a single drive spread for nine months. It would be carried out from January to September 2018.

With growing rail network, new trains, different high quality services designed by the railways and the promise of the government to deliver superior and safe rail services and growing expectation of our passengers and commuters for better amenities and services, it is imperative that the railway employees rise to the occasion to deliver on the promise. Employees can and do deliver only when they have the right skills, knowledge and the mindset to deliver to the new standards of excellence that the organization hold from them all. Project Saksham will help achieve these objectives.

Identification of training needs and formulation of planned training calendar will be required to be completed by December 31st, 2017, ensuring that each employee of the Indian Railways is imparted training. During the span of 9 months, all the employees irrespective of their designation will have to go through week long training in knowledge and skill related to their specific work area. It would be a five day on the job training or class room training in the Railway Training Centers based on the nature of their employment. Under the project, the short-duration learning courses will include skilling in existing lines of function as well as skilling with respect to evolved global practices in specific areas. All the employees of the Indian Railways ranging from a peon to the higher ranks of the Railway Board shall take part in the comprehensive training programme. This training will not only upgrade skill of each of the employees but also go a long-way in improving the performance of the Indian Railways.